German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had an “open, friendly conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, together with Dutch Foreign Minister Hoekstra, “a source in the German delegation said.
“The conversation focused on assistance to Ukraine in the military sphere and reconstruction, as well as on how to solve the blockade of much-needed global food exports from Ukraine,” media was told.
Germany will start reopening its embassy in Ukraine, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock announced during a visit to Kyiv Tuesday.
The embassy will begin operating on limited capacity, Baerbock said, and the German ambassador to Kyiv, Anka Feldhusen, will again be the German representative in Kyiv.
In her remarks, the foreign minister also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has fallen victim to self-deception.
“He believed that our European values of freedom and humanity, make us decadent and weak. Ukrainians have proved that in reality it is the other way around. Your will for freedom makes you strong,” Baerbock said.
“And the knowledge that you are fighting for your humanity against an army that knows only cynicism and terror. That is why your struggle marks a turning point in the world dispute between liberal democracy and autocratic regimes,” she continued.
Baerbock also visited Babyn Yar, a historical site in Ukraine where massacres were carried out by Nazi forces during World War II. In March, Russian missiles struck near the memorial, located on the northern edge of Kyiv, which commemorates the site where more than 33,000 Jews were shot to death in 1941.
Zelensky, who is Jewish, tweeted at the time that the Russian attack was “history repeating.”
CNN’s Zahid Mahmood contributed reporting to this post.